You people misunderstand me. You call me "Satan" and "devil," but... do you know my crime? I loved God too much. And for that, he betrayed me—punished me. Just as he's punished you. After all, how could God stand idly by while that man broke into your home and butchered your family in their beds?

There are only two rational answers, Nick—either he's sadistic, or he simply doesn't care. You're angry. You have every right to be angry. I am angry, too. That's why I want to find him—hold him accountable for his actions. Just because he created us doesn't mean he can toy with us, like playthings.

History

God created the archangels; Michael, Lucifer, Raphael, and Gabriel. Lucifer, the second of the archangels created, formed an especially strong bond with his older brother Michael. After the creation of mankind, Lucifer began to argue with his brothers and with God over these new, imperfect beings. The arguments became so heated and bitter that Gabriel chose to leave Heaven rather than watch the fighting continue. According to Lucifer, God commanded his angels to venerate Man, but Lucifer refused, and was cast out of Heaven. As an act of defiance, Lucifer twisted a human being's soul to create the first demon, Lilith. The demon Cain revealed that Lucifer planned to turn his brother Abel into "his pet," to save him Cain offered himself to Lucifer. Lucifer obliged, but only if Cain killed Abel, Cain was given a mark and ordered by Lucifer to create the Knights of Hell, from some of the first fallen humans hand picked by Lucifer. At some point in time Lucifer was confined against his will in a Cage by God. The Cage could only open if sixty-six of the six hundred seals on the Cage broke. During his confinement, demons multiplied, and some worshiped him as their creator.

In 1972, Azazel possesses a priest at St. Mary's Convent, and killed eight nuns in the chapel. This sacrifice enables him to speak to the imprisoned Lucifer, whose cage opens beneath the convent. Lucifer tells Azazel that Lilith is needed to break seals that hold him captive in the Cage, and that Azazel needs to find a very special child.[1]

Lucifer is freed when the last seal is broken inadvertently by Sam when he kills Lilith.[2] While on Earth, Lucifer, with the help of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, causes chaos and natural disasters. He intends to destroy humanity and to kill Michael. Essential to Lucifer's plan is the possession of his destined vessel - Sam Winchester.

Sam and Dean try to find a way of defeating Lucifer without giving in to the plans of Heaven. They attempt to kill Lucifer with the Colt, but fail.[3] Eventually Sam comes up with a plan in which he will allow Lucifer to possess him, and then force him into the Cage. The initial attempt fails, but when Lucifer confronts Michael at Stull Cemetery, Sam manages to gain enough control to force himself and Lucifer into the Cage, pulling Michael in as well.

After Lucifer's defeat, a group of traditionalist angels, led by Raphael, hope to release both Lucifer and Michael to complete the Apocalypse as prophesied.[4] When Sam is released from the Cage, his soul remains behind, perhaps being abused by Lucifer and Michael.

Before Lucifer's imprisonment in the Cage, he had in possession the angel tablet and placed it in one of his crypts that he created to store his prized artifacts.

Characteristics

Personality

Lucifer was once the most beautiful angel in all of existence. God loved him best of all his brothers, even more than Michael.[5] Lucifer was proud. When humanity was created, he was unwilling to accept its place in God's favor (Gabriel described it as the favorite son resenting the new baby). And when God commanded all of Heaven to love his new children more than himself, Lucifer refused. Lucifer pleaded: "Father, I can't. These humans are flawed. Murderous!" After persistent disobedience, Lucifer was cast out of Heaven.

This enraged Lucifer, and he struck back by taking a human woman, Lilith, and stripping her of her humanity, creating the first demon. This unforgivable affront led to his imprisonment in the Cage after a losing confrontation against his brother Michael. He remained there in isolation for millennia. His goal was to be free from his Cage, and to eradicate humanity, allowing him to restore Earth to its original untainted glory. It is suggested that he would also destroy demons, his own creations, because he considers them less worthy even than humans.

Lucifer claims that he never lies, because he does not have to. He promises both his vessels, Nick and Sam, that he will be honest with them. He also says that he sympathizes with his vessels, both of whom are victims like himself. He goes to some lengths to get Sam's acceptance, sparing Dean's life once, and allowing Sam revenge against some of the demons that controlled his life.

Lucifer shows concern for his fellow angels, though it is the archangels he loves most. He captures Castiel, and admires the lesser angel's loyalty in refusing to reveal the presence of his friends. He invites Castiel to join him, and when Castiel refuses, Lucifer respects his decision. Lucifer is remorseful when forced to kill Gabriel, and disappointed when Michael berates him. When preparing to fight his older sibling in their pre-destined battle,
Lucifer pleads with Michael to "walk off the chessboard," but Michael determined to fulfill his destiny and serve God. Even so, when Castiel molotovs Michael with holy oil, Lucifer is outraged by the attack on his brother and obliterates Castiel.

Gabriel criticizes Lucifer, describing his actions as "one big temper tantrum." Death and Crowley make similar observations, dismissing Lucifer as a "petulant child with daddy issues." Nonetheless, Lucifer sees himself as a tragic figure who was punished for being right, dismissing humanity as a flawed, barbaric race even as Gabriel argues that he prefers humanity because they at least try to do better. He refuses to accept any blame for his actions, which as Michael observes is nothing new, and suggests that God intentionally made Lucifer a devil.

Lucifer can be highly cruel and barbarous to those who get in his way. Despite claiming to be the victim, Lucifer has absolutely no qualms about killing anyone or anything that gets in his way. Evidence of this is in 5.10 Abandon All Hope... where he has an entire town killed, and orders his demon soldiers to kill themselves to raise Death, as well as in 5.19 Hammer of the Gods when he went on a rampage and brutally slaughtered all the pagan gods (except Kali, who was rescued).

Nicknames

In Supernatural, he has been referred to as: the Adversary, the Serpent, Satan, the Devil and the Morning Star. According to Lucifer, the name "the Devil" was a man-given title; humans gave him this title/name for his bad reputation. Lucifer tells Nick that the title doesn't fit and that he was cast down for loving God too much. The name of his first vessel, Nick, is also a common term for Lucifer.

In fandom, Lucifer is sometimes referred to as "Lucy" or "Luci." In the episode 5.19 Hammer of the Gods, Gabriel greets Lucifer as "Lucy" although this was a play on his name referring to the show I Love Lucy. Balthazar also refers to him as "Lucy" in a conversation with Sam during 6.11 Appointment in Samarra. Sam's hallucination of Lucifer refers to himself as "Luci" in 7.15 Repo Man. In religion he is known as "The Morning Star" after he fell and was sent directly to perdition.

Episodes

Lucifer is first mentioned by the demonCasey. Casey claims that demons have a belief system just like humans, but while humans believe in God as a higher power, demons view Lucifer in the same regard. Casey tells Dean Winchester that Lucifer was once an angel, and that his name means "light-bringer." Casey also states that no demon has ever actually seen Lucifer.

Although for different reasons, both members of the Host of Heaven and demons are trying to break the 66 Seals so that Lucifer can be released. Castiel informs Dean that once he is freed, Lucifer will spread chaos, and Hell will follow him. Uriel describes Lucifer as a very powerful archangel who hated humanity and defended the angels by not bowing to it. Uriel wants Lucifer to rise to power again, and tries to recruit other angels to his cause, killing those who refuse. Anna Milton killed Uriel before he could kill Castiel. Zachariah tells Dean that he has a role in stopping the Apocalypse, but eventually reveals that their true plan was to allow Lucifer to be released so that the archangel Michael could kill Lucifer after the Apocalypse had begun.

Demons want to free Lucifer so that he will lead them, and take over the Earth. Ruby tells Sam Winchester that, in an act of defiance, Lucifer created the first demon by corrupting a human soul: Lilith. The demons' plan is set in motion in 1972, when Azazel manages to speak to Lucifer through the door of the Cage, which opens at St. Mary's Convent, in Ilchester, Maryland.[1] According to Ruby, Lilith is the only one who can break the final seal, and free Lucifer.

The truth is, Lilith is the seal, and her death breaks it, is only revealed after Ruby manipulates Sam into killing Lilith. Finally freeing Lucifer.[1]

Lucifer is released from his Cage and immediately seeks out a suitable vessel to inhabit. He finds a widower named Nick, whose wife and child were both butchered by a man that broke into their home. Lucifer causes Nick to hallucinate. Nick, lying in bed, finds himself covered in blood. He jumps up and turns on the light; the blood is gone, but his dead wife appears by the bed. Later, while boxing up his child's things, he here crying over the baby monitor, and he sees blood dripping from his child's crib. In a dream, Lucifer comes to Nick in the form of his wife, and asks his consent to act as a vessel. He promises to avenge the deaths of Nick's family, if Nick will give in to him. Nick agrees. White light engulfs the room as he enters Nick's body.

At the beginning of the episode, a sleeping Sam rolls over and sees his long deceased girlfriend, Jessica, lying beside him. He embraces the illusion, and they discuss her death and Sam's fate. She says she is trying to protect him from himself. At the end of the episode, in a dream, they speak again. She tells him he cannot change, and he insists that he can, that there is reason to hope. Her voice and form change. Sam turns around, and sitting beside him is Lucifer. Lucifer cannot come to Sam's location directly because of the runes that Castiel carved onto Sam's ribs, and Sam will not tell him where he is. Lucifer explains that Sam was present during his rising not only to kill Lilith, but to serve as his vessel. Nick is only acting as an improvised vessel for the time being; he is not strong enough, and can barely contain him. It is Sam that Lucifer needs. Sam threatens to kill himself, but Lucifer assures him that he would be resurrected. Lucifer shows Sam sympathy, but assures Sam that in the end, he will consent. He then vanishes.

Sam. My heart breaks for you. The weight on your shoulders. What you've done. What you still have to do. It is more that anyone could bare. If there was some other way... but there isn't.

Why would I want to destroy this stunning thing? Beautiful in a trillion different ways. The last perfect handiwork of God. Ever hear the story of how I fell from grace? [...] You know why God cast me down? Because I loved him more than anything. And then God created... you. The little hairless apes. And then he asked all of us to bow down before you: to love you more than him. And I said; "Father, I can't." I said, "These human beings are flawed. Murderous." And for that, God had Michael cast me into Hell. Now tell me: does the punishment fit the crime? Especially when I was right. Look what six billion of you have done to this thing. And how many of you blamed me for it?

Through a street preacher, Zachariah finds Dean and sends him five years into the future so that Dean can see the repercussions which will follow if he refuses to be Michael's vessel. In the year of 2014, Dean travel with the older version of himself, Future!Dean, and a battalion of other hunters, including Future!Castiel, to Detroit to confront the Devil. In this future, Sam consented to serve as a vessel, and the world is ending. Future!Dean tries to use the Colt on Lucifer, but he snaps Future!Dean's neck with his heel. Lucifer, wearing Sam, tells the Dean of the past that he does not want to destroy the world, but to rid it of an imperfection. He insists that he was unfairly cast out. Dean, however, dismisses Lucifer's claims, informing Lucifer that, for all his fine words, he is nothing more than a bigger version of the thing that Dean has been squashing all his life. Dean vows to return to the past and stop this, but Lucifer tells Dean that Sam will always consent to him in Detroit; no matter what they do, Sam will become his vessel. Zachariah then retrieves Dean and he returns to his current year.

Lucifer is in Carthage, Missouri on a mission to summon Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He manages to trap Castiel inside a ring of holy oil, and his demons trap Sam, Dean, Jo, and Ellen. Lucifer speaks to Castiel, asking him whether he came with the Winchesters. Castiel lies that he came alone, but Lucifer is not fooled, though he admires the other angel's loyalty. Castiel asks about his vessel, which is breaking down slowly. Lucifer invites Castiel to join him, reasoning that as two of Heaven's castoffs they are on the same side, and Heaven will hunt Castiel if they manage to defeat Lucifer. Castiel refuses. Meg approaches her father, asking what to do with the Winchesters, and Lucifer tells her to leave them be, and gives her a reassuring touch.

Lucifer begins conducting the ritual to free Death. The Winchesters locate him, and while Sam distracts him, Dean shoots him in the head with the Colt. He crumples to the ground, but after a few moments reawakens, and slowly gets to his feet. He flings Dean against a tree, and continues work on the ritual. When Sam asks him about the missing townspeople, Lucifer reveals that the women and children are in the mass grave he has been filling in, and that all the men are possessed. He tries to convince an aghast Sam that it was necessary, and insists that Sam should understand what he is doing, as someone who has always been out of place in his own family.

Lucifer completes the ritual by commanding the demons around him to sacrifice themselves. Castiel, who has managed to escape, takes Sam and Dean away. Lucifer sees, but does not interfere. He turns, and greets Death.

Lucifer arrives at the hotel where the pagan gods are gathered after getting a call from Mercury. His vessel is further degraded. He accuses Mercury of being a traitor, slaughters the other gods. He is about to kill Kali when Gabriel who has been posing as Loki for millennia and formed an attachment to Kali and the Winchesters in that guise, intervenes. He tells Lucifer that he has no legitimate grievance, he is only jealous that humanity replaced him in God's affections. Gabriel says he is not on Lucifer's side, or Michael's but that he has come to agree with God, that humanity is better than them, noting that many of them try to overcome their flaws where the angels are content to repeat their mistakes. Gabriel then tries to stab Lucifer from behind, using an illusion to keep him distracted, but Lucifer sees through the charade and impales his brother with the angel sword. Lucifer stands over his brother's body, crying.

After their escape, Sam and Dean play a porn DVD Gabriel gave Dean. In it Gabriel tells them they may be able to re-imprison Lucifer, and that the keys capable of opening and then re-imprisoning him in Lucifer's Cage are the rings of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He says that Lucifer does not know about them.

Sam and Dean track Lucifer to Detroit, Michigan, with the intention of tricking the Devil back into his cage. Lucifer waits for them in a dilapidated building with his demon subordinates. He has two of them escort Dean and Sam, prepared with demon blood, into his presence. Sam makes a show of bargaining, but Lucifer stops him, revealing that he knows about the rings, and Sam's plan. All the same, Sam moves forward, and says "yes" to Lucifer. The archangel abandons his vessel to enter Sam. For a moment, the two are incapacitated, giving Dean time to open the portal to Lucifer's Cage using the Horsemen's Rings. Sam appears to be in control, and attempts to throw himself into the portal, but Lucifer reveals that he controls Sam, and is only messing with Dean. He closes the gate, takes the Horsemen's rings, and teleports to another location.

Lucifer: I've been waiting for you a long time [...] I'm not the bad guy here [...] I'm your real family [...] Who are you really angry with? Me? Or that face you see in the mirror?Sam: I'm gonna rip you apart from the inside out!Lucifer: Such anger, young Skywalker.

Lucifer then offers an olive branch to his host by killing the demon-possessed people from Sam's past who manipulated his life, moving him toward this moment.

The next day, Lucifer appears in Stull Cemetery, the place of his final confrontation with Michael. He tries to reason with Michael by questioning God's purpose, and blaming him for making him into Satan. He insists that he does not want to kill his brother, but will fight to the death if he must. Michael refuses to back down and is determined to be a "good son" to their Father. Before they can begin their battle, Dean arrives in the Impala and demands to speak with Sam, but Lucifer testily refuses. Michael orders Dean to leave but is unexpectedly banished when Castiel throws a molotov cocktail of holy oil at him.

Outraged that Castiel would strike his brother, Lucifer snaps his fingers and obliterates him. He then attacks Dean, prompting Bobby to shoot Lucifer several times without effect, which Lucifer responds by telekinetically snapping Bobby's neck. The archangel continues to hit Dean, promising to break every one of his bones before killing him. As he raises his fist to strike, Lucifer catches sight of an old army toy stuck in the backseat ashtray of the Impala, which Sam put there in his childhood. Suddenly, Lucifer is overwhelmed as memories bring Sam to the surface, and his love for Dean allows Sam to momentarily take control of the Devil. Sam re-opens the portal. Before he can throw himself in, Michael arrives, arguing that he must fight Lucifer, that it is his destiny to do so, but Sam closes his eyes and falls backwards into the doorway. Michael grabs hold of him to stop him from falling, but is pulled in with his brother and the two plummet into the abyss together. The Cage closes behind them, leaving the red hot rings behind.

Dean believes that the resurrected Sam might still being hosting Lucifer, which would explain his emotionless behavior. However, Castiel later dissuades him, saying, "If Lucifer escaped the cage, we would have felt it," indicating that something else is wrong with Sam. Later, through an extremely painful procedure, Castiel determines that when Sam was raised from Lucifer's Cage, his soul was somehow left behind. Castiel speculates that Lucifer and Michael are probably abusing his soul, as they see their imprisonment as Sam's fault. Castiel thinks that the restoration of Sam's badly damaged soul would cause irrevocable physical and mental harm. When Death returns Sam's soul, he erects a mental wall that prevents Sam from remembering his experiences in Hell.

Castiel tumbled the wall in Sam's mind as a means to force the Winchesters to keep out of his plans for defeating Raphael. Afterwards, Sam starts to hallucinate that he is still in Hell; he sees visions of meat hooks and twisted versions of his surroundings, as well as a sinister voice whispering to him, mocking him. At a critical moment Lucifer, in the form of Nick, appears, and tells Sam that he is still trapped in the cage and that he never truly left. Everything that has happened since his "resurrection" is the latest and best torture devised by Lucifer himself.

Whether or not this is a hallucination, an echo of Lucifer or an actual outreach by the archangel himself is not revealed until the following episode. Lucifer continues to haunt Sam's waking moments by constantly seeding doubt that the world around him is real, and even manages to lead Sam away from Dean and Bobby by taking Dean's form and tricking Sam into believing they were going on a hunt. Sam asks Lucifer why he simply doesn't end the illusion and return to hell fire and physical torture, to which Lucifer replies: "It ends when you can't take it anymore," hinting that he wants Sam to shoot himself.

Sam resists long enough for Dean to find him and talk him around, using his hand injury as a physical anchor to weigh him down to reality. By pressing on and making his injury bleed, Sam manages to dispel Lucifer for a time, but he returns during their ambulance ride to Sioux Falls Hospital following a near fatal run-in with a Leviathan. Lucifer confirms that he is a hallucination but promises he will never leave, putting Sam in a seizure.

It appears that Sam continues to see Lucifer during season seven, but is able to cope by grasping the scar on his hand to drive away the hallucinations, and refusing to acknowledge them. However, on a case in which Dean is threatened, Sam makes the mistake of acknowledging Lucifer, and accepting his advice. This gives the hallucination power over Sam again, and his coping methods cease to be effective.[10] Lucifer begins a systematic attempt to deny Sam sleep, and after five days of insomnia Sam is hit by a car, then committed for psychiatric observation. The hallucinations continue, nearly killing Sam, until Castiel returns to take them into his own mind. Immediately, Lucifer greets Castiel as "brother," and Castiel remains in the asylum.[11] This hallucination was apparently linked to Sam's own mental state, as the Lucifer hallucination eventually faded away, leaving Castiel unbalanced but able to communicate and take action.

When Dean and Crowley try to hunt down the location of the First Blade, their location spell takes them to the residence of the demonCain. After fighting off a small wave of demons that were able to track Dean and Crowley, Cain tells Dean that the First Blade will only work with the Mark of Cain. Cain then tells them story of how came to get the Mark, that it wasn't God that his brother Abel was speaking to, but rather Lucifer. Unable to watch his brother become the corrupted "pet" of Lucifer, Cain makes a deal: Abel's soul in Heaven for my soul in Hell. Lucifer accepts, but only if Cain is the one to kill Abel. And with that the Knights of Hell were born.

Lucifer in Lore

According to A Dictionary of Angels, Lucifer is erroneously equated with the Devil (the fallen angel) due to a misreading of Isaiah 14:12: "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning," (Lucifer connotes star, and applies to the morning star - that is, Venus - instead of an angel) an apostrophe which applied to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. It should be pointed out that the authors of the books of the Old Testament knew nothing of fallen or evil angels, and do not mention them, although, at times, as in Job 4:18. The name "Lucifer" was applied to the Devil by St. Jerome and other Church Fathers. Milton in Paradise Lost applied the name to the demon of sinful pride. Dutch writer Vondel uses Lucifer in lieu of the Devil.

There is an angel called Samael in Judaic mythology (also known as "Sammael" and "Samil"), which means "poison of God" in Hebrew.

In Talmudic and post-Talmudic lore, Samael is an important archangel. He is considered in legend both a member of the Heavenly host (with often grim and destructive duties), a fallen angel (equal to Satan) and the chief of the evil spirits. One of Samael's greatest roles in Jewish lore is that of the Angel of Death; in this capacity, he is a fallen angel but nevertheless remains one of the Lord's servants. As a good angel, Samael supposedly resides in the seventh heaven, although he is declared to be the chief angel of the fifth heaven.

In some traditions, Lucifer and Michael are considered twins. This is possibly due to the fact that Lucifer's story may derived from Shahar, the god of dawn in the Ugarit myth, who has a twin brother Shalim, the god of dusk.

In the KJV and other translated versions of the Bible, they translated the word “Lucifer.” Lucifer in the original Hebrew was actually Helel (hay-LALE). If you open a Hebrew OT, it would read in the Hebrew “Helel”, not Lucifer. The reason why it is written as Lucifer is because the authors of the Vulgate and the KJV translated the name. There was some wisdom to the translation with the next line “son of the morning.” The definition of it is “brightness” but is also the latin word for the “morning star”. Only one time does the Bible mention the word Helel, or “Lucifer”. That is in Isaiah 14:12. There’s a reason for that. It mentions what Helel’s crime was, in which he was banished from God and sentenced to everlasting torture. It says Helel exalted himself above all of the other stars of God and tried to be the god of the congregation. Helel was Satan’s name before he committed his crime.

Satan in the Hebrew means “the opponent” or “adversary.” There’s a reason for that too. Satan is what he became after his crime. He was the morning star, and now he’s the adversary. Since the days of Adam, he has been known as Satan. People don’t trace back what is written in Revelation 20:2 back to the serpent written of in Genesis with Adam and Eve. “And he laid hold on the dragon, THAT OLD SERPENT, which is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years.”

In Islamic tradition, Satan (Shaytan or Iblis) is a jinn who refused to bow before Adam as men were created after his race.